Abstract

Most of the existing mobile services were designed based on the client/server architecture. Those mobile services neither paid much attention to mobile users’ interactions with their environments nor considered the collective efforts between the mobile users in a dynamic peer group. In this article, the notion of ambient e-service is so defined as to identify a new scope of mobile e-service, which address dynamic collective efforts between mobile users (enabled by mobile peer-to-peer technology), dynamic interactions with ambient environments (envisioned by location-based service), the moment of value (empowered by wireless technologies), and low cost service provision. The notable features of ambient e-services are the exhilarated linkage based on social context and significantly rapid growth of connections. We also present an ambient e-service framework that characterizes ambient e-services with three dimensions (value stack, environment stack, and technology stack), followed by several exemplars of ambient e-service applications. Moreover, we present the ambient e-service embracing model (ASEM) that addresses the integrated consideration of trust, reputation, and privacy required for fostering the growth of ambient e-services and steers the directions of future fruitful relevant research.